Author Description

Pia Lord was born in Baltimore, within earshot of the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University. She loved music as a child and, at the age of eight, in her heart decided to become a concert pianist. Lifeas path, however, led her down a different road, spending one year as a Rotary exchange student in Annecy, France, studying French and then graduating from Barnard College, Columbia University with a degree in Economics. Later, Pia attended Peabody Preparatory and then was elated at the chance to receive further musical training after playing successful auditions in 1999 and 2004. She graduated from Mannes College of Music in NYC in 2001 and William Paterson University with the Bachelor of Music in Music Education in 2009. Still in pursuit of her girlhood dream of being a concert pianist, Pia plays concerts, composes music and writes haiku and lyric freestyle verse on music, life and death. Attending musical concerts through the William Paterson University Music Department requirement MUS000, entitled Recital Hour, earning no credit, Pia became inspired by the music, the performers and the performances. She began scribbling small poems in the darkness of the concert hall, with pen and flashlight, sometimes not even being able to see the paper upon which she was writing. Rhapsody is the culmination of writings from five years of concert attendance and works from an earlier introspective period. Solo classical piano, jazz, orchestral and chamber music performances are some of the main inspirations for most of the poems found in this book, in addition to the death of Lady Diana, Princess of Wales.